


Thicker Than Water

by allyasavestheday



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Angst, Cluster As Family, Dubious Science, Fluff, Félix Tholomyès is the devil, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, M/M, Minor Combeferre/Courfeyrac, Minor Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta, Minor Violence, Multi, POV Multiple, Patron-Minette - Freeform, Slow Burn, f/f relationship but for the sake of not bogging the slim pickings in the f/f tag i'm not tagging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 11:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7219831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyasavestheday/pseuds/allyasavestheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One morning: strangers, worlds apart. The next: closer than they ever thought possible.</p><p>or, a sense8 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**06:51, 5 June, Paris, France**

For a moment, Enjolras is unsure what woke him.

There was a sound — a gunshot? — a woman crying, someone he’s never seen before. No, he’s seen her before, but where? She was scared. He was scared. What was she doing? He tries to focus, but the dream slips through his fingers, gone.

The moment is barely that before he realizes the migraine he went to sleep with is back (or still there, he doesn’t know) and with a vengeance. The light filtering through the curtains is gray and weak and yet he squeezes his eyes tight, throwing an arm over his face to blacken the light still visible behind his eyelids.

He can hear Combeferre puttering around the kitchenette, his light steps and the gurgling of the coffee machine. It takes him an inordinate amount of time before he feels able to open his eyes, still squinting away the dim light, and even longer before he is able to sit up. When he does, he is nearly knocked down again, the rush of blood sending another pulse of blood and pain, enough that he cries out.

“Enjolras?" Combeferre calls from the kitchenette. “You okay?”

Enjolras makes a noise, which doesn’t seem to reassure Combeferre, because moments later he is knocking twice and opening the door. Enjolras must look a sight, curled in on himself, the heels of his hands pressed to his temples. “Oh Enjolras,” Combeferre murmurs, volume dropping. He crosses the room to adjust the curtains, blocking out the last of the light. The room is barely dimmed, but it’s enough for Enjolras to unscrew his eyes. “Do you still have a migraine?” he asks.

Barely managing to nod, the movement setting off another pulse, but not as bad as before, Enjolras shoves back the covers, moving to get out of bed. “It’s fine,” he says. His head has throbbed nearly non stop the past week, but one glance at the clock tells him he doesn't have time to stay in bed any longer.

“Hey,” Combeferre lays a gentle hand on Enjolras’ arm. “Call in sick, go to the clinic.”

“What’s the point of a doctor flatmate if you’re going to make me go to a clinic?” Enjolras asks, stepping around him to the kitchen.

“I’m in residency,” Combeferre corrects as he follows. “And they might want to run some blood tests, make sure your levels are all okay.”

“My levels are fine,” Enjolras says, pouring himself a large mug of coffee.

Combeferre watches him, brows pushed up in worry. “Maybe lay off the coffee.”

“Weren’t you the one who said caffeine helped migraines?” Already he can feel his waning, though he’s not sure if it’s a product of the coffee or something else.

In lieu of a retort, Combeferre reaches across the counter to press a breakfast roll into Enjolras’ hand, and points to the almond butter still out from his own breakfast. “Eat something with dark greens at lunch. And drink water.”

“Yes, mum.”

Combeferre makes a face, checking his watch. “I gotta get going. So do you, if you’re going to go into work.” His tone is disapproving.

“I’ll go to the clinic on my lunch,” Enjolras concedes. If nothing else, he won’t be able to get any work done if his head keeps hurting this bad.

He peels open the roll, layering spread across the surface, and is taking the first bite when Combeferre murmurs, “Call me if anything gets worse, okay?” Enjolras nods, but Combeferre raises his brows and repeats, louder, “ _Okay?_ ”

“Yes! Okay.”

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Enjolras hadn’t spent the entire last weekend in bed, something he rarely did, laid up with a migraine he hasn't experienced since starting HRT, and hadn’t been able to get any work done the entire week. He has two deadlines coming up the next week and he hasn't been able to get either done, or even started. Combeferre had been needling him to go to the clinic since Tuesday, but Enjolras kept putting it off. By now, however, he’s not sure he can keep waiting.

Combeferre makes a satisfied noise, and grabs his travel mug, “I’ll see you at six.”

“Love you!” Enjolras shouts after him, just to be contrary, and earns himself a distracted but earnest, “Love you, too!”

Another glance at the clock tells him he really needs to hurry up, already having a late start getting up. Gulping down the last of his much needed coffee, he speeds through brushing his teeth and getting dressed and is out the door fifteen minutes later, laptop bag banging against his thigh as he hurries down the stairwell of their apartment.

Outside, the sun is peaking through the thick layer of clouds, though thankfully not enough to trigger anything. The pain has subsided, relegated to a quiet pulse at his temples, enough that he can ignore it.

At a cross light, his phone buzzes, a notification from one of his news apps. _Félix Tholomyès,_ _Ministre des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international, has announced his plans…_ The preview cuts off, and Enjolras swipes to read the rest of the article. 

 

> Félix Tholomyès, Ministre des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international, has announced his plans to visit Cairo 21 July to head conversations on the subject of the French peace process initiative. He will be reporting the results at the upcoming Foreign Affairs and Development meeting in Brussels 15 September. Representatives say the conversation will continue at the European Council in Luxembourg this October.

The article goes on, but just recapping Tholomyès conservative politics and his failed conversations in the past. It’s clearly not well researched, even for a blurb, but Enjolras doesn’t have time to focus on that, filing away the information about Tholomyès for later, and checking the clock — 07:39.

Enjolras looks up from his phone in time to catch sight of a dark haired man across the street. He’s paused at the pedestrian crossing, adjusting a small sports bag slung across his shoulder, a cigarette dangling lax from his fingertips.

As Enjolras watches, the man glances briefly up the street before stepping off the curb, completely unaware, it seems, of the traffic coming fast in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” Enjolras shouts over the passing cars, afraid his warning will be for naught.

The man seems to hear him though, and stops where he is in the middle of the lane, looking up at Enjolras, perplexed. Desperately, Enjolras waves his hand at the impending semi-truck headed straight for him, “Look out!”

It’s too late though, and with a breathless cry, Enjolras turns his head away helplessly as the lorry thunders past. “Oh god,” he chokes, afraid to look, listening for the cries of other pedestrians, the screech of tires.

The sounds never come, the lorry doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop, and those around him keep walking, not bothered by the hit and run they must have just witnessed.

Enjolras takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the horror, and sees — nothing.

Traffic is continuing as normal, the pedestrian light has turned green and those around Enjolras, those who hadn’t seen the man try to cross against traffic, have started making their way across the road.

The dark haired man with the cigarette is no where to be seen.

* * *

  **02:43, 5 June, São Paulo, Brazil**

Over 7,000 kilometers away, Grantaire has fallen to the ground, a futile hand thrown up to ward against the sudden appearance of an oncoming truck, one that vanishes nearly as soon as it appeared.

Head whipping around, he looks for the man who had cried out to him, tall and dark, with a golden halo of curls. He is no where to be found, gone with the non-impact of the truck. The street is deserted, its inhabitants asleep as he would like to be.

“The fuck,” he whispers to himself, picking himself up off the ground. His head is pounding again. He thought maybe he’d been hit too hard, too many times when the migraine didn’t go away no matter how much he self-medicated, but now, with the appearance of hallucinatory angels, he’s almost certain of it.

He takes out his phone to text Bahorel, to tell him he can’t box the next night, when he remembers the Friday night turnouts, knows that, though he doesn't need it, he can't waste that kind of money, and tucks the phone back in his pocket.

He needs a drink, he thinks as he slings the bag over his shoulder, the weight nearly unending him in the process. His cigarette fell when he did, and gone out, but he stubs it with his toe for good measure. No, what he needs is sleep, and some water. Maybe that would stop his head from aching and his hands shaking.

He tries to put the golden man out of his mind, and by the time he’s fallen into bed he’s more than convinced his exhausted, addled brain dreamed up the stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at [girlionceknew](http://girlionceknew.tumblr.com) and [g-taire](http://g-taire.tumblr.com).


	2. Two

**11:21, 5 June, Cairo, Egypt**

Cosette’s eyes drift towards the clock, sighing when she sees she still has another 40 minutes before her break. Before her, building blueprints await her authorization. They’re not real prints, just simple exercises to get her more acquainted with the program, but they take forever and hold none of her attention. She minimizes the program to check her email, but feels guilty for slacking off and closes out. There was no one around to see, the empty desk across her stacked with files. 

Leaning back in her chair, Cosette closes her eyes, letting the sounds of the quiet office fade away, the tapping of keyboards and shuffling of papers nothing more than a quiet drone, the hum of voices barely registering.

In fact, the office sounds have faded away almost completely, replaced instead with the screech of metal, and a woman’s automated voice saying, “Next, Namba Station.”

Opening her eyes, Cosette bolts forward in her seat.

Where previously her humming office space had been there was now a florescent lit subway car, passengers on all sides of her. She whips her head around, searching for some explanation and only seeing more passengers and signs in, what was that, Japanese? But Cosette doesn’t know Japanese and yet… the words come to her naturally.

“Where am I?” she whispers. Her mind races, but she finds herself frozen to her seat, too scared to stand, to make a noise.

“Who are you?” someone asks in Japanese.

Directly in front of her is the only person who seems perturbed by her appearance — and it isn’t as though she doesn’t stand out, dark skin and hijab among the paler Japanese faces — a wide eyed young man, his mouth agape, one earbud pulled out so he could hear her.

“Who are _you_?” she asks in Arabic.

He looks confused, head cocking to the side like he was listening. Like he understood. “Joly,” he says. “What office is this?”

Frowning, Cosette shakes her head. “We’re on a train.”

Joly looks around and now he’s frowning. “I must be crazy,” he murmurs, and Cosette is relieved to know she’s not the only one thinking it. That is, if hallucinations can be self-aware.

“I must be the crazy one,” she says. “Since you’re the figment.”

He smiles at that, but disagrees, “No, _you_ are the figment.”

“A hallucination would say that,” she counters. She no longer feels afraid, a strange calm falling over her. Joly too, looks confused but not alarmed.

Cosette opens her mouth to say something when there is a loud bang, and she flinches, only to be back at her own desk, a stack of files before her. “Cosette, have you finished the exercise?” her advisor asks, completely unaware of Cosette’s recent travel through space.

“What? N- no,” she says, shaking her head as much to deny as to dispel the hallucination. Except, when she glances across to the empty desk, it isn’t empty anymore; the Japanese man is sitting in the chair watching the exchange.

Tearing her eyes away from him, she looks up at her advisor, to see if she sees the man, but she’s talking again, “Okay, well, get through the rest of them and after lunch you can get started on these.” She taps a long dark finger on the top of file.

“Yeah, sure,” Cosette says quickly, wishing her away so she can focus on the Japanese man. Except, when her advisor finally does leave, Joly is no where in sight, and Cosette is left with the metallic taste of subway in her mouth and no explanation for it.

Pulling up her browser, she types in “Namba Station,” a place she’s never heard of and whose spelling she guesses at. When the results return with a subway station in Osaka, Japan, she wants to be surprised. Instead, she closes the tab and pulls up the blueprint activity.

It was just a daydream.

* * *

**18:27, 5 June, Osaka, Japan**

Joly blinks once, twice.

The sunny office has disappeared, and with it, the girl in the hijab. He never caught her name. If, indeed, she had a name. Did hallucinations have names?

A few of the other passengers are giving him odd looks, and he supposes, if he had been speaking aloud, it must have been a little strange. More than a little strange. Quickly, he puts the earbud back in his ear, and pretends to have been talking on the phone.

The vacant seat across from him is quickly filled at the next stop, and Joly has to force himself to not stare at the old woman, half expecting her to turn into the girl.

To be fair, he is just getting off a nearly fourteen hour shift, and has consumed more caffeinated tea in the last day that he might struggle to get to sleep when he finally gets around to it.

Rubbing his eye hard, he focuses on the article on his phone. His coworker suggested it, thinking he might find the idea of physic nervous systems interesting; as if his interest in scientific advances might extend to the realm of impossibility. His coworker had just shrugged and replied that nothing is impossible — their profession was the proof of that.

It isn’t a long article, and it’s something to pass the time, even if it is more implausible than even Joly is used to reading.

* * *

**13:04, 5 June, Paris, France**

“The results will take a few hours to process, but you should hear back from us by tomorrow,” the technician says, pressing the vein hard with the gauze as she wrapped his arm. “In the meantime, make sure you’re drinking enough water and take an over the counter pain reliever — unless you think it won’t be enough?”

Enjolras lies, shaking his head and flexing his arm a little. The technician nods, and sweeps her hand as if to say, you’re all set. “Leave the wrap on for four to six hours.”

As soon as he’s out of the clinic, he dials Combeferre. It goes to voicemail, but by the time he’s grabbed a wrap from a nearby café and is on his way back to the office, Combeferre has called him back. “Any news?” he asks by way of greeting.

“They said it might just be the heat,” Enjolras says. “But I haven’t had any problems with that in the past. They suggested more sleep—“ Combeferre snorts loudly on the other end, “— and to make sure I’m eating a varied enough diet. Otherwise, the results should in tomorrow.”

“Did you get some —“

“Dark greens, yes. I have some sort of wrap that’s probably ninety percent spinach and kale.”

“Good.” There was a noise on the other end, and Combeferre answers them before saying, “My lunch is over, I gotta go.”

Enjolras nods though Combeferre can’t see him and pauses at an intersection. Struck by the familiarity of it, he says, “Wait, Ferre—“

“Yeah?”

“With migraines, do people—“ hallucinate? See people who aren’t there? “— have vision problems?”

“Are you having vision problems?” Combeferre’s voice is sharp with concern. “Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know, seeing stuff that isn’t there.”

“Do you mean like an aura?”

“A what?”

“Aura. Some people, when experiencing migraines, see spots or lights or their vision is distorted in some way.”

That definitely isn’t what had happened. “Hmm. Maybe,” he says, noncommittally.

“Did you tell the clinic about this?”

“Yeah, of course,” he lies.

“Then I’m sure it’s okay.” There’s another sound in the background, which Combeferre answers with a shout, and then says, “Text me if anything happens, okay? I gotta go.”

“See you.”

When he gets back to his office he searches ‘aura + migraines’ and reads the first two results that look reasonably accurate. The first article was enough to tell him an aura wasn’t what he’d experienced. The second only confirmed it.

Leaning back in his chair, he hovers his cursor over the hyperlink to hallucinations, torn between wanting to know and knowing that finding out might be worse. Enjolras has never been one to shy from the truth. In fact, as a journalist it was his job to search out the truth at any cost.

“It was just one time,” he murmurs to himself, clicking out of the tab. His migraine is lessened, and he decides the man with the cigarette must have stepped back when the lorry passed and Enjolras simply hadn’t seen him walking down the street.

Besides, he doesn’t have time to poke around the internet diagnosing himself with intestinal cancer or whatever else WebMD may turn up. He opens the Tholomyès article he’d been reading before, along with some others along the side of his screen. Already he had an outline of the article he needed to get done by the next week, but it wasn’t enough considering he should have been working on it all week.

Turning up his music, Enjolras sets himself to work.

* * *

**12:45, 5 June, Dublin, Ireland**

Feuilly stands still for a moment, letting the icy water of the Irish Sea lap at his bare feet.  
****

There is no one else on the _plażą_ , though Feuilly supposes most people are at work this time of day. He’d submitted three applications this morning alone, so hopefully soon he would be among those working people.

The beach isn’t so bad though. The endless stretch of rocky waterline is nothing like the beaches in his home in Poland — no, not his home any longer. Ireland is his home now.

The thought should have made him sad, but upon arriving in Dublin two weeks ago he has already seen multiple polish shops, and even the Tesco carried some brands he is familiar with.

But that isn’t the important part. He is here to find a job. If he is being honest, he doesn’t miss Poland. There is no one there for him, no family, the friends he had, though kind and good, were only friends while at work. And when there is no work, there are no friends.

Back at the hostel he’s been staying at — no one mentions housing shortages when they suggest coming to Ireland for work — his entire life fits in a backpack.

He had hoped to find work sooner upon arriving in Dublin. His English is very good, though his accent thick. He thinks his darker skin might be a detriment — besides the language barrier. For some reason people here seem to think Poland only held light skinned red-heads. Feuilly only fulfilled half of the equation.

Even so, he thinks it might be better to be jobless in Ireland than where he’d come in Poland. Despite there actually being many jobs in Poland, he didn’t qualify for most of them with his lack of higher education. And where he is from, there are still turf wars left over from the post-Soviet era, even with the efforts of the _milicja_.

There’s the sound of heavy breathing behind him and Feuilly instantly tenses up, his fists balling when he turns, only to see a young man, about his own age, jogging barefoot along the beach. The fact that he is barefoot is what gives Feuilly pause, because being barefoot himself, he knows how much the stones hurt to walk on, let alone run on.

The man catches his eye and smiles, giving a little wave. Feuilly returns it a little unsure, still rather unused to western Europe’s custom of greeting everyone they pass.

The man slows pulling out an earbud. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” he says, his accent as thick as Feuilly knows his own must be. A plastic water bottle crinkles in his deeply tanned hand.

“I wouldn’t say morning,” he replies, checking his watch. Unless he misunderstood the greeting, but he is sure he did not. He then looks out at the iron gray clouds that have cloaked the city since his arrival. He supposes it is rather beautiful, and the rain isn’t falling, so there’s that. “I’m not sure beautiful either, but it is nice,” he concedes.

The jogger cocks his head, perplexed. “Where are you from that a glorious morning like _this_ ,” he sweeps his hand in the same direction Feuilly had looked as though the clouds promising rain were glorious, “isn’t beautiful?”

“Poland.”

The man gives a whistle. “You’re a long way from home.”

“I suppose,” Feuilly says, though he’s met five other Poles since coming to Dublin in his hostel and the employment agencies, and hadn’t felt like it is that unusual. “Where are you from?” he asks to be polite. He’s found it’s customary to exchange immigration and travel stories, even if it’s just a curt location. 

“What do you mean?” the jogger asks, wiping his forehead. He must have been running a long time to work up such a sweat, it is rather a cool afternoon. “I’m from here. Well, I grew up closer to Quito, but Guayaquil has become my home.”

“Guayaquil?” Feuilly asks, the word even more foreign and difficult on his tongue. Is that Irish? Almost every sign around the city is written in Irish first, and then English, but Guayaquil is too smooth, too mellifluous a sound to have come from Irish.

“Yes…” the man says slowly. Perhaps Feuilly is misunderstanding him.

Gesturing to the man’s bare feet, he asks, as much to change the subject as his actual curiosity, “Do your feet not hurt, running on the rocks?”

The man looks around, then asks, “Do you mean the sand?”

This time Feuilly is certain. “No, the rocks. They are smooth but they hurt my feet.”

To demonstrate, he crouches down to pick up a few rocks, to show the jogger, but when he does he comes away with a handful of soft, powdery sand.

“What—“ he starts, looking around, only to see that the cold, gray beach has disappeared, and in its place is a beach just after sunrise, golden and warm. Spotting the shore line are trees Feuilly has only seen in pictures, tropical and leafy.

As soon as Feuilly realizes this, the jogger gives a shiver, and though his feet really are curled in the sand, he shifts in his stance as if suddenly aware of painful pressure.

The water is no longer icy, though Feuilly wouldn’t call it warm. It is clearer, bluer, the waves foaming clean and white. “What is this place?” Perhaps he has died and gone to paradise.

“I was about to ask the same thing,” the jogger says. “It’s so cold!”

“It’s Ireland,” Feuilly says without thinking, though this beach is decidedly _not_ Ireland. He can still feel the chill of Dublin, and when he focuses, the water at his feet isn’t truly any warmer. Despite the sand, he’s aware of the stones, somehow, phantom awareness.

“it’s Ecuador,” the jogger corrects.

Feuilly turns to look at him, but he is gone, the steel gray clouds returned.

* * *

**06:54, 5 June, Guayaquil, Ecuador**

Courfeyrac blinks, looking up and around him, as if the Polish man somehow managed to walk away in the moment Courfeyrac looked away. But he is nowhere to be seen, gone with the receding tide.

Perturbed, he opens his water bottle, taking long, slow sips. It’s a hot morning, the first that he’s been able to go for a run, the first in a while he’s been able to get out of bed without being knocked down again by the migraines that have plagued him all week.

Wiping his mouth, he gives the empty beach an uneasy glance. There is no sign of the Polish man, no footprints in the sand, no indication that he had ever been there.

Yet Courfeyrac spoke to him. The man responded. He is from Poland. He has an accent, but spoke Spanish perfectly.

How his mind conjured up such a vivid character, transported him to the chilly beach in — _Ireland,_ was it? Courfeyrac doesn’t know.

A glance at his watch tells him he doesn’t have time to stand here and ponder, though as he continues his run he can’t take his mind off the Polish man, his bewilderment distraction enough that he barely registers arriving back at his flat not long after until he is pulling out the key, muscle memory filling in where his conscious mind is absent.

His neighbor, an elderly woman who wore layers upon layers even in the stifling heat, is coming down the stairs as he goes up, “ _Buenos días,”_ she says in her reedy voice. She is carrying her shopping bags, headed out to the _tendero_ and _panadería_ after her early morning walk around their neighborhood. It is a routine they had almost every morning.

 _“Hola,”_ he says distractedly, his smile belated and grim.

“What’s the matter, _niño_? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

This time his smile is more genuine, “Oh, nothing. Just coming back from a run.”

She winks at him, “Not that you need it.”

He laughs and smacks his soft stomach. “No, I don’t. I just like it.”

“Keeps you young,” she says, winking again. She turns and finishes her way out with a lofty backwards wave.

Courfeyrac bounds the rest of the way up the stairs, the burning in his thighs a welcome continued distraction from the encounter on the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at [girlionceknew](http://girlionceknew.tumblr.com) and [g-taire](http://g-taire.tumblr.com).


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the delay, I was out of the country and then dealing with some Personal Shit. enjoy :)

**08:16, 5 June, Washington, D.C., USA**

“de Meaux!” someone calls.

Bossuet turns carefully, holding the coffees still to minimize spillage. “Yes?”

“What are you doing?” Montparnasse asks.

Not bothering to indicate with the cups, Bossuet says, “Wedding dress shopping.”

“When you’re done with that, Jerri called a meeting at nine thirty.”

“That’s nice.”

“She needs someone to take notes.” Montparnasse raises an eyebrow like that should be obvious.

Bossuet shrugs. “Okay, have fun.” He turns to finish delivering the coffees before they get cold. And hoping to escape before—

“de Meaux.”

“Parnasse.”

“ _You’re_ going to take notes. I have to deliver some files to the embassy.” Montparnasse has a wicked gleam in his eye.

Making a face, Bossuet asks as he walks down the hall, “How do you always manage to get out of the boring as shit meetings?”

“Seniority!” Montparnasse calls back.

“We were hired at the same time!”

“Then, my good looks.” 

Bossuet can’t argue with that one.

Twenty minutes later, he finds himself in the corner of the meeting room, laptop open and fingers poised over the keys. So far, he has taken two notes — the date and the subject of the meeting.

“Why _Tholomyès?_ ”

“I mean, he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs—“

“What’s the point of having envoys or ambassadors if they’re just going to send someone as high up as a Minister?”

“Show of faith?”

“Or a show of how dire they feel the situation is.”

“It’s hardly dire. Besides, the Prime Minister visited in May, this is hardly anything in comparison.”

“Tholomyès has voiced his support for Israel in the past—“

“The zionist dick,” another voice mutters, quietly enough that Bossuet doesn’t look up from his notes, assuming one of the other members of the cabinet is making a personal, off-record remark.

“— but France has made it clear that if Israel doesn’t concede to their conditions, they’ll support Palestine. Why send someone to Egypt to get them to assist in the discussions if they already know who they’ll end up backing?”

“Because Egypt has a lot riding on the outcome of these negotiations, and France knows it, regardless of who they send.” Bossuet is making the note in the margin, glancing up to see who made the bitter comment when he realizes that the speaker is not a member of Jerri’s staff.

He has dark skin and golden blond curls and although he is lounging in one of the chairs circling the table as though he belongs there, there is a nervous tightness to the striking features of his face. Maybe he’s new? How did Bossuet not notice his entrance, he definitely wasn’t there before.

No one acknowledges the newcomers’ comment, which isn’t unusual as everyone talks over one another.

Martha pulls up a document on her computer, “Why is he planning to arrive in Cairo the 5th of July when he’s not meeting with Egyptian officials until the 21st? Surely he’s not vacationing?”

“I think he wants to tour the research facilities.”

“Egypt doesn’t have any significant research facilities.”

“They’ve been working with the Germans for years to get off the ground —“

“Last I checked Tholomyès is French?”

Bossuet’s notes are practically nonexistent, bulleted points in his own shorthand, cultivated from years of mumbled law school lectures by professors who didn’t seem to care if he passed or not. He’ll have to translate them later before he sends them on to Jerri, but first he needs something to note down. He wishes Montparnasse hadn’t wheedled his way out of the meeting.

Looking over at the blond man, his fingers tapping out what he hears without really listening, Bossuet frowns when he sees that the man has stood and is peering over Martha’s shoulder at her computer screen. Martha, for her part, doesn’t seem to notice, “— not to mention Germany’s position in the matter —“ and though the man seems to be taking care not to touch her, he is very close, close enough that Martha should have noticed him by now.

Bossuet frowns, his fingers slowing, wondering if he should say anything, wondering why no one else has said anything.

“Something wrong, de Meaux?”

Starting, Bossuet tears his eyes away from the golden haired man, looking to Jerri at the front of the room, fingers pressed to her temples, her tired eyes focused on him. Bossuet glances back at Martha, who’s looking at him now, perplexed, and then his gaze darts to the blond man just behind her.

When Bossuet’s eyes meet the man’s, the man’s eyes widen with surprise, his lips parting with a sharp breath. He takes a swift step back away from Martha and her computer.

But Martha doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, and is looking at Bossuet with concern now.

“Er — no, ma’am, everything is fine, sorry, ma’am.” Bossuet shakes his head to clear it, but when he looks back, the blond man is still there, sharp gaze fixed on Bossuet.

Jerri looks at him for another long moment before sighing, “Alright. Hamid, you were saying?”

As Hamid picks up the thread of his interrupted thought, the blond man circles away from the wall towards Bossuet, whose gaze is firmly on his computer screen, though he tries to track the man out of the corner of his eye.

“Can you see me?” the man asks in a hushed voice. No one reacts to the question, and Bossuet is sure something is wrong now. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, only makes note of Hamid’s comment on Germany and Israel’s relationship.

“Can you see me?” the man repeats, louder this time, closer, enough that Bossuet stiffens at the sound.

No one else seems to notice this new, blond man. Martha didn’t notice his hovering, and no one reacts when he speaks. Now, it would seem that the man did not expect anyone else in the room to be able to see him.

Something is wrong.

How much sleep did he get last night? Enough, more than usual he might even say. He didn’t have more than a cup of coffee this morning so far, and for once he’d eaten before drinking it.

“You can hear me, can’t you?” the blond man says, and Bossuet doesn’t react. “You can, I know you saw me.” There is a note of desperation in his tone, and Bossuet feels a moment of pity for him. He presses his lips together to avoid speaking.

“Please tell me you can see me.” The distress is full force now, the man’s dark features screwed up with panic.

Bossuet nods once, without thinking, and mentally kicks himself. The man, though, sighs with relief, leaning his hands on the table. “I thought I was going crazy,” he says quietly.

Bossuet isn’t sure he _isn’t_.

He catches the tail end of Huan’s rebuttal, and jots it down, but doesn’t know who or what she was rebutting. He should be focusing on the meeting, not a hallucination.

“ _Je m'appelle_ Enjolras,” the blond says walking closer, but Bossuet understands it without thinking. He’s only ever taken three years of mediocre, Detroit-based, public school quality Spanish, and another two of low intermediate when he reached college; not enough to hear foreign languages and understand without thinking, and certainly not French.

“ _Et vous?”_

Throwing all care to the wind, Bossuet types his name out on the text document he is using to take notes, nodding at the screen curtly. The man named Enjolras comes closer to read it, and he is inches away and Bossuet is certain he can feel him, thinks that if he were to reach out, he would be able to feel the soft cotton of Enjolras’ shirt.

“Lesgles de Meaux. Bossuet.” His name sounds very natural on Enjolras’ tongue. “You have a very French name. Are you French?”

Bossuet shrugs _._

Enjolras looks around the room, at the other staffers. Bossuet watches his eyes track the room, falling on a US seal on one of the paintings. “Is that — are we — _Washington, D.C._?” he demands, turning to face Bossuet again.

* * *

 

**14:52, 5 June, Paris, France**

The intern, Bossuet, is taking this far more calmly that Enjolras is. Or, at least, he’s better at hiding it.

Though, to be fair, he did stop taking notes a while ago, his attention trading between staring at his unfinished notes and Enjolras.

The staffers seem to be wrapping up, directing comments towards Bossuet for him to note down for later, which he does in some sort of shorthand that Enjolras shouldn’t be able to read, but can.

Can he read it because of Bossuet? How does that work? He understands the staffers’ English perfectly, though he had never been very good in his English lessons. Presumably, Bossuet understands him when he speaks, and he is sure he’s speaking in French.

This is ridiculous, what is he saying. None of this is real. None of this can possibly be real.

He should call Combeferre. This isn’t normal; first the man on the street and now he’s — he’s what, teleported? Hallucinated a whole room of United States government staffers discussing Félix Tholomyès’ upcoming trip to Cairo? Maybe he’s been working on that exposé too long. Though, he hasn’t come across any information on Tholomyès helping to get funding for research facilities, that’s new.

“de Meaux!” The woman who had been running the meeting shuffles her papers and pushes out of her chair.

“Ma’am,” Bossuet says, standing quickly

“Send in those notes as soon as possible, would you?” she asks, taking off her glasses and tucking them against the collar of her shirt. She rubs the little red indents on the side of her nose.

Bossuet looks down at the half blank page and says, “Er— yeah, of course.” He seems to be determinedly not looking at Enjolras.

“Great, excellent.” She picks up her files and the moment she is gone, the door clicking closed behind her, Bossuet spins around to face Enjolras.

“What the fuck are you?”

Enjolras should be offended — he’s not a _what_ , he’s a _who_ , but in this case, he lets it slide, understanding what the intern is asking. “I’m a person.”

“A person, sure, but what kind of person? A _real_ person? Or a hallucination person?”

Despite himself, Enjolras looks down, assessing his corporeality, before remembering that this is nonsense. “Of course I’m a real person.”

Before Enjolras can register what he’s doing, Bossuet reaches out a hand and pokes Enjolras hard in the arm, with enough unexpected force that Enjolras sways a little on the spot. They both start at the contact. “Huh,” Bossuet says.

“I told you I was real,” says Enjolras, a little prim.

“You just appeared, speaking French, in the middle of a semi-classified International Affairs meeting. No one but I could see you,” Bossuet returns.

“Point.”

They are silent for a few moments, Enjolras standing, hands shoved in his pockets, and Bossuet sitting in his seat swiveled away from the table to face Enjolras. Neither of them are looking at each other, rather, staring blankly just to the side.

It is Bossuet who breaks the silence. “I must be crazy,” he murmurs, rubbing a dark palm over his bald head.

“We can’t both be crazy,” Enjolras says reasonably, though he thinks perhaps Bossuet is right when he shoots Enjolras a skeptical look. “Well, all right,” Enjolras amends. “Perhaps we both can be crazy. But surely there’s a way to prove we’re not.”

“Prove we’re not… and then what?” Bossuet asks. “Prove we’re able to what, exactly?”

The man from this morning comes back to Enjolras, dark curls and a cigarette, who should have been run over, but vanished. Who heard Enjolras’ warning, had looked up curiously, stunned.

Only Enjolras seemed to have seen him, no one else crying out when the lorry barreled towards him. And only this intern, Bossuet, can see him now.

He takes two steps closer to the wall, reaching out to touch the paneled walls. They are cool and smooth under his fingertips, a sure force, but then he closes his eyes and —

He’s in the break room, a mug of coffee cold and forgotten on the counter.

His hand is stretched out against nothing, and it falls now though empty space. Turning, he sees Bossuet sitting at one of the dining tables, the mahogany meeting table gone, his laptop gone, replaced with the white IKEA tabletop and an abandoned newspaper. “Wha—“

"Enjolras, _ça va?_ " Philippe asks as he pushes open the door, his own mug in hand. Enjolras doesn’t have much presence of mind to answer, which doesn’t seem to bother Philippe. He opens a cupboard, and pokes around the counter. “ _Où est le sucre?_ ” When Enjolras doesn’t respond, Philippe says, louder, “Enjolras!”

Enjolras starts. " _Pardon?_ "

" _Sucre_?"

“On top of the microwave," Enjolras says, pointing.

"Ah! _Merci!"_ Pierre smiles.

Bossuet watches the exchange with wide but somehow comprehending eyes. He and Enjolras watch Philippe finish stirring sugar into his coffee, departing with a wave. As soon as he is gone, Enjolras says, “So — are we not in D.C. anymore? Are we in Paris again?”

“I think,” Bossuet says slowly, running his fingers along the acrylic tabletop. “I think we’re in both. Or rather, I don’t think either of us has moved. I think I’m still in D.C. and—“

“— I’m still in Paris,” Enjolras finishes, nodding.

Bossuet returns the motion, eyebrows raised and eyes somewhat blank as they stare unblinkingly into space. Then he snorts out a laugh. “God,” he says. “I wish this was the worst thing I’ve had to deal with this week.”

“What could be worse?”

“I’ve had the same constituent call six times a day, every day, for the last three weeks, pretending she’s someone else each time, though she gives me the same address. I’ve had to copy out documents that are already typed and probably could just be printed out again from the same file. I’ve had fifty year old tourists flirt with me while on break, I’ve had to work with someone who I think would actually murder me if it meant he could have the latest Michael Kors tote free, I’ve had a killer migraine all week — shall I go on?”

Enjolras shakes his head with a laugh.

“Honestly, this,” Bossuet gestures over Enjolras and the rest of the break room, “this is a relief.”

“Or a sign that the stress is finally catching up with you.”

“Shhh, we don’t talk about the stress.”

Somehow, despite the fact that Enjolras has never met this man, there is something familiar about the way he closes his eyes and smiles around his denial. It’s a little endearing.

Before Enjolras can say anything, he hears someone say, “Bossuet, what the fuck are you still doing?”

He looks up and around expectantly, but he’s still in the office kitchen, and Bossuet is still at the dining table. Bossuet, however, is turned in his seat and is saying, “Shit— sorry, Montparnasse. I’m just— just finishing up.” 

Enjolras hears, “Okay, well, Jessica has some filing.”

“Nuh uh, I just had to sit through this stupid meeting, do it yourself or have someone else do it.”

“Believe me, I would,” the voice says, and though Enjolras can not see the person, try as he might to trigger the jump — squeezing his eyes closed, walking closer to Bossuet, even feeling for some sort of connection — he thinks he might be able to perfectly picture the speaker. He imagines someone tall with lidded eyes, looking down their nose at Bossuet, their slow speech deliberate and bored. “But I’ve already been charged with the _delightful_ task of touring not one, but two classes of fourth graders through our nation’s Executive Mansion.”

This must have been about as delightful as the voice made it seem, as Bossuet bursts into slightly manic laughter. “Dude, good luck.” 

The other person didn’t say anything more, and Enjolras assumes they’ve left when Bossuet turns to look at him again. “Montparnasse,” he explains with a grimace. “He thinks he’s above everyone, but he’s a measly unpaid intern, just like the rest of us.”

Enjolras jolts, “ _Unpaid?_ You work for the White House, the President of the United States, and you’re unpaid?”

“Well, congress granted itself a special exemption from having to pay its interns, so here I am, not being paid.” Bossuet explains, with the dead-eyed stare of someone who has worked too many hours doing menial tasks an untrained squirrel could do with an Excel spreadsheet and a pen. “I did meet Obama once, that was pretty cool.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“It’s supposed to be a step towards my getting a proper job. Hopefully within the Office of General Counsel, I’d love to put this stupid law degree to use.” He sighs, shaking his head. “I should have just become a lawyer.”

“How are you able to pay for anything?”

The manic laughter is back, though there is nothing ‘slight’ about it. “Most of the interns come from really wealthy families who can pay for anything they need. Others, like ‘Parnasse and I, are on very small private scholarships.”

The gears are spinning in Enjolras’ mind, the investigative piece already forming despite knowing his editor wouldn’t care about White House interns.

As though he knows what Enjolras is thinking, and perhaps he does, Bossuet shakes his head, another smile stretching across his mouth. “There’s been outrage about it for ages. Obama was sorta-kinda-not really trying to do something about it before his term ended, but wasn’t able to. It’s down to this administration. Or not, who knows, with the state of things.”

“That’s barbaric,” Enjolras repeats, for once at loss for words.

Bossuet shrugs. “That’s capitalism.”

“Slavery,” Enjolras corrects.

“Is there a difference?”

Enjolras thinks that, if this whole telepathic thing is permanent, he won’t mind sharing his headspace with Bossuet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bossuet is the last of the 5 June Cluster, but there are more sensates to come.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm not a poli-sci major, and my knowledge of international political relations isn't very good, so I'm keeping it vague. It won't feature as a plot point.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [girlionceknew](http://girlionceknew.tumblr.com) and [g-taire](http://g-taire.tumblr.com).
> 
> edited 5 jan '17: I wrote this chapter before the us presidential election, and bossuet's comment, "It’s down to this administration [to change the unpaid internship situation]" relates to the administration after Obama's. In this AU Trump is not president. idk if Hillary is or who is, but it's decidedly not Trump.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took literal months to update. A combination of depression and apathy made it difficult to work on, even though I had a lot of free time, and I almost gave up on the story completely, despite how interested I was/am in exploring les Amis as sensates. 
> 
> But!!! A number of people commented on the last chapter, which encouraged me enough to keep going, so I thank you guys so, so much for that. I'm going to try to be more consistent going forward with updates. 
> 
> * * *
> 
> _cw: depiction of panic attack, (cautiously tagged) depiction of disassociation unrelated to… sense8 typical disassociation, depreciation, mention of anti-medication rhetoric_

**15:29, 5 June, Paris, France**

It takes Enjolras about half an hour before everything fully sinks in.

He’s sitting at his desk when his vision begins to blur, and for a horrifying moment, he thinks he is about to meet Bossuet again, and the moment is only horrifying because he remembers the fact that _he met an American named Bossuet at all._

He spoke to Bossuet. A White House intern. He stood in the middle of a White House briefing and listened to them talk about Minister Félix Tholomyès.

Perhaps Combeferre was right. Maybe he _is_ letting this exposé get away from him.

He stares down at his hands, hovering — no, _trembling_ — above the keyboard. For a moment, he isn’t sure if those are his hands at all, if the chewed brown cuticles and the familiar-turned-unfamiliar ink stains are really connected to his wrists, and while he’s at it, can he really be sure that those are his wrists at all?

Couldn’t he have picked a better time to have a panic attack? A time when he _didn’t_ have multiple pieces due?

He’s aware of that thought, even as he becomes separately aware of his heartbeat rabbiting in his chest. Or his face going numb. Or the way he can not seem to breathe deeply enough. Or breathe at all. Even as he pushes back from his desk, carefully stands, forces himself to walk deliberately, back erect, towards the restroom. He _will not_ fall apart in front of his co-workers. He will not.

Something must show on his face because someone — Avery or Raison or maybe Philippe — asks him if he’s okay and he just manages to nod: curt, professional, calm, collected. Everything he is not feeling in that moment.

The moment he is in the bathroom, stall door locked firmly behind him, or maybe not, maybe it’s just the force of his back colliding with the door that keeps it closed, bangs it closed, his skull colliding with the hard plastic, but it doesn’t matter so long as the shuttering gasps and shaking knees stay within the confines of the tiny bathroom stall.

He can’t remember his last panic attack. That’s a good thing. It’s a _good_ thing, he tells himself, as he scrabbles through the fog of his reeling brain to remember how to make it stop. How to make it stop, make it stop, stop.

_Breathe._

No, don’t breathe. The breathing is the problem, he is breathing too much, he’s seizing his lungs, why can’t he understand that, why can’t he just get his body to cooperate with him, why can’t his brain not sabotage him for once, why—

Stupid. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

No, worse than that, _he’s lost his entire damn mind_.

Inability to concentrate. Migraines. Depression. Panic attacks. Hallucinations.

It’s like he managed to take every one of his father’s snide arguments against taking medication, and live them out.

Thinking of his father only makes him shake harder, and he throws his head back furiously, teeth gritted, hitting the stall door again and again, pain not registering through the fevered cycling of his thoughts.

“ _Respira,”_ he tells himself, but those aren’t his words, that’s not his language, his voice. “Breathe, breathe,” except he _can’t_ , and no amount of pointing out the obvious is going to help. “I _can’t_!” he cries instead, to whomever is out there listening.

His breathing hitches again, in anger, panic, frustration, until he chokes on saliva and fury. Coughing, doubled over, he hits his head on the toilet paper dispenser, hard enough he’d be sure it will bruise if his attention weren’t completely occupied elsewhere.

The coughing helps, though, to disrupt the frenetic pace of his breathing, allows him to gulp in air, hold it deep, finally remember how to stop hyperventilating.

It’s another ten minutes before his breathing has returned to normal, and his hands are still so weak it’s difficult to unlock the stall door, but he manages.

He looks a wreck.

His hair, already a halo of wiry curls on a regular basis, is misshapen from tugging at it, his eyes are rimmed red and hot, snot and tears have crusted to his skin, and there is, in fact, a bruise developing on his left temple. He’s leaning forward to inspect it when he thinks he sees —

No.

Staring determinedly down at his hands cupping the running water, he splashes his face, pats it dry, and leaves the bathroom still refusing to look at his reflection any more.

He should call Combeferre.

It’s been weeks since his last full blown panic attack, since the last one he could stave off, couldn’t get under control. Combeferre would want to know. He’s been through almost every one of Enjolras’ ups and downs, knows him better than anyone could. He’d know what to say. He’d know how to help…

He should call his therapist, or at least mark it down to talk about in his next appointment. God, but it’s been so long, he thought he’d been doing better. And now… adding in the hallucinations…

Enjolras decides against both.

Maybe it was a one time thing, he thinks, resolutely not thinking of the man who didn’t get hit by a truck this morning. There’s no point in worrying anyone over somethinœg that could very well just be a product of over-working and the never ending migraine he’s been experiencing. He promises himself that this weekend he will take it easy.

There. Problem solved.

The choice settles uneasily in his stomach, hot and guilty and knowing Combeferre will be unhappy if he finds out.

As he’s approaching his desk, he checks his phone and finds 28 new notifications within the last half hour from other news outlets’ apps, following his tracked topic, “Félix Tholomyès.” 

He swipes AFP’s latest bit, and waits impatiently for the video to load. It’s live, and he can see l’Arc de Triomphe in the background. The newscaster is indicating behind her, where yellow and white emergency vehicles have overrun the normally packed roundabout.

Finally the video loads enough that the audio comes through clear and he hears, “… large scale traffic accident in downtown Paris, which has shut down a large portion of the upper quays, and slowed traffic to a standstill. The accident involved Félix Tholomyès, _Ministre des Affaires étrangères,_ whose driver was killed on impact. No word on M. Tholomyès’ condition, as he was taken away by emergency transport not twenty minutes ago.”

It cuts to the news anchor back in the studio, who thanks the field reporter before turning to face the camera, “Now, authorities are not calling this a terror attack, however, at this time they have issued an APF for —“ the wifi must glitch for a moment, because the audio drops and then, “— Javert, a former inspector in the Parisian police, who infamously aided escaped convict Jean Valjean’s attempt to bomb Laboratorie BPO in 1999." Behind her, the graphics show rather grainy headshots of the two men. Have they really nothing more recent than 1999? "Both men are extremely dangerous, and the public is advised to call authorities immediately if they see either of these men.”

Enjolras turns off the broadcast as it switches to some new breakthrough M. Thénardier and his team has made in the world of genetics and stem cells — irrelevant. Setting his phone down, he looks at the unfinished article still open on his screen.

Tholomyès was in an accident, potentially killed by a wanted terrorist. Either his exposé just got that much more important or it just turned into an obituary. 

“Enjolras!” His editor, Jeanine, rushes over to him. “Whatever you’re working on, stop because —“

“Javert,” he says, though he isn’t sure if he’s the one speaking.“Tholomyès.”

“Have you seen the initial reports already?” She looks surprised, which Enjolras finds odd. They may work for one of the smaller news outlets in Paris, but they’re still on top of the current events. “APF and BBC have already broadcast two separate reports, we gotta get on top of this.”

“Get someone else to do it, it’ll just be a cut and paste job,” Enjolras snaps, clenching his still trembling hands under his desk.

Normally she wouldn’t take anyone’s shit; she can’t, as executive editor of one of the highest ranking, actually independent papers in Paris. But now she pauses, looking at him closely even when he turns his face away. “Are you feeling alright, Enjolras?”

“I’m fine,” he says. He repositions himself at his desk, but his back is stiff, shoulders aching from holding so much tension.

“You don’t look fine. You look pale, and that’s a difficult feat.”

“I’ve just been caught up in this exposé, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, what happened to your—“ she reaches out, presumably to touch the bruise on his forehead, before thinking better of it, especially when he jerks back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.” She drops her hand. Enjolras wonders if she has children or a sibling or significant other, someone she’s used to taking care of. 

There are another few moments where he’s trying to pretend she’s not standing there staring at him, and she’s waiting for him to tell her what’s wrong. Jeanine mentored him when he arrived, fresh faced out of university, or well, actually, freshly fired from his two week stint at a different paper for writing “incendiary and provocative rubbish” one too many times.

He’s still had to tone back, focus on letting the hard facts speak for themselves more than personally tearing down arguments, but Jeanine sets him on stories she knows needs his style, his barbed touch. She knows him, or at least knows him better than his other co-workers, with whom he’s kept a deliberately distant relationship; she’s seen the highs of his successful articles, and the lows of the ones he’s fought tooth and nail for.

This is the latter.

Or at least, that’s what Enjolras is telling himself.

“How about,” she says slowly, when he’s stared at his computer for another few minutes without typing, “I give the bit to Alexandre, and… you take off early.”

“I’m not done,” he says immediately.

“You’ve got your other articles in?” At his confirmation, she says, “Tholomyès isn’t going anywhere. Either he’s dead, in which case… we’ll have to write up a proper obituary _before_ you drag him through the mud. Or, he’s alive, and you’ve got to gather more material with this new development anyway.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but she holds up a slim, dark finger. “I told you this wouldn’t be an easy project. I told you it would take months. A few days won’t change anything. Go home. Get some rest. You look like you could use a little shut eye.”

At that, she’s sweeping away, pausing at Alexandre’s desk as she passes, leaving Enjolras unable to dissent. Before she reaches her office door, however, she calls out, “Ten minutes, Enjolras!”All he can do is nod helplessly.

It takes him eight to pack up his stuff and head out, and once he has, he is secretly glad she’s sent him home. The sun has vanished behind some cloud cover, and a cool breeze promises rain later. Though he doesn’t want to admit it, he’d never have gotten anything done if he stayed.

Walking to the metro lets him think, or clears his head, or both; either way, once he arrives, he feels calmer.

It’s repetition at this point, a mantra tethering him to sanity: it was a one time thing. It won’t happen again.

Never mind that he is suddenly wary of every person who looks at him, uncertain of their corporeality.

(Do _not_ add paranoia to the list of things proving his father right, do _not_ do it.)

He just needs to take it easy. Lay off the caffeine. Maybe stop reading the news before going to bed (terrible for his blood pressure). Go to bed early. Actually exercise a bit, get his muscles moving. Sleep in. All the things Combeferre has been trying to get him to do since they moved in together at the end of university.

Though it’s hardly rush hour, the métro is packed with everyone from tourists to business men to a group at the end of the car aggressively playing a tambourine-ukulele-bagpipe trio of a song Enjolras thinks should be recognizable, but isn’t. All of the passengers try to ignore them as a fourth member walks up and down shaking a bowler hat filled with coins in their faces.

No one has patience for them today. The air is too still, and Enjolras can feel sweat gathering at the base of his spine despite standing close to the doors and getting a face full of cool, metallic subway air every time they open.

It’s another two stops before they depart, and the car seems to breathe a sigh of relief at the quiet, though there’s no relief from the stuffiness or the smell of summer sweat and deodorant.

That’s another bonus to being let home early. If he were to have departed at his usual time, the car would have been less than standing room only, it would have been pressing, stifling, no room to breathe. After his episode today, Enjolras is grateful that at least now, there are only a few other people standing, with enough room between them that Enjolras can focus on his phone and not them.

The next stop is a well populated one; during rushhour it’s hellish, with so many business people and tourists alike swarming the train.

He takes a few steps away from the door in preparation, to make room for the new passengers. Just as he’s moving, the car comes to a stop, and, unbalanced, he bumps into one of the others standing.

“Oh, _excusez-moi_ —” he starts, before the face in front of him blurs into recognition and he trails off.

Though he looks nothing like the conviction photo on the newsreel almost twenty years before, there is something unmistakable about the shrewd, narrowed gaze of the man before him. Former Inspector Javert stares at him irritably, and then, as though something has just occurred to him, his eyes widen, and he takes a step closer.

Enjolras shies away from him, unsure if he should make a scene, unsure what it is Javert is doing on the métro, what it is he could do.

As if realizing himself that he is a highly wanted criminal, Javert wrenches his hand back, though not breaking eye contact with Enjolras. The moment the car doors open, he darts out, and Enjolras can only watch helplessly as he is engulfed in the crowds of people coming and going from the cars.

Javert reappears at the base of the stairs out of the station, and for a moment, he looks back at Enjolras, and though his lips do not move, though there would have been no way for Enjolras to hear him from so far away, over the din of the station, he could have sworn he heard Javert say, “Hello, Enjolras.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fiiiiinally something is happening. 
> 
> I’m basing this on one form of panic attacks that I have. Symptoms and processes vary person to person, not every panic attack of mine has been like this, I’m more of a paralyzed in fear kind of person. One of the nice(?) things about my panic attacks is that if I’m in public, I just go mute and very still and irritable until I’m able to get to a bathroom or other and just fall apart. Or I pass out. Fun!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [g-taire](http://g-taire.tumblr.com), where I fill fic prompts and post my salty opinions.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's that? i said i would update more regularly and i didn't? who is shocked. anyways, i have 90 pages of papers due so i wrote this instead.
> 
> cw: food/lack of appetite, mentions of alcohol abuse and sobriety. sensate related questioning of sanity. it’s a grantaire chapter.

**10:57, 5 June, São Paulo, Brazil**

There are better ways to start the morning, Grantaire thinks, than waking up mid panic attack.  
****

His heart has not stopped pounding for the last forty minutes. But now, at least, he can breathe.  
****

“What the fuck,” he mutters without heat, rolling over to check the time. Usually his body gives him a few minutes of peace before betraying him. When he’s not hungover, that is. Which, miracles of miracles, this morning he is not.

He opens the tracker app on his phone and marks off yesterday as a success. The little line of checks brings something akin to pride to his chest, warm and pleasant. It’s not much, but it’s a start. 

Sitting up is a bigger trial than he expects, and the rush of blood brings on the now familiar migraine he’s been dealing with the last week. At this point, he’s disregarded it as an unfortunate side effect of sobriety. He’s done his research. He’s prepared himself.

He thinks.

Despite a peculiar hollowness in his gut, the contents of his fridge leave much to be desired, and only repel him from his quest of food. All he has is half a papaya, a jar of jam, a carton of dubious milk, a few slices of white cheese, and some  _presunto_.

The sight of the last makes his stomach turn in an unfamiliar way. Not disgust, necessarily, but the thought of eating ham suddenly becomes so unappealing, he takes the few slices and tosses them in the bin.

He’s trying to decide if it’s worth it to make even rice with his stomach feeling the way it does, when he receives two texts from Bahorel, asking if he’s awake and if he wants to get lunch in a bit. He fires back an affirmative before he considers whether or not he’s feeling up to spending a lot of time with Bahorel. Or, really, outside of his bed.

He doesn’t have time to regret it though, because Bahorel is already suggesting their usual kilo place, and Grantaire knows he can’t back out now.

Forty-five minutes later, he’s showered, fresh-faced — or asfresh-faced as he gets — and surprisingly awake considering how late it was when he finally slept and how little coffee he’s consumed this morning.

Bahorel is waiting for him at the corner of the  _bairro_ , a cigarette clamped between his lips as he types something out on his phone. 

This morning, his dreads are pulled into a thick braid away from his face. It’s not a particularly over-warm morning, but the little beads of sweat on his dark skin tell Grantaire that he’s been up for a while, that he probably had a shift early this morning.

“ _Tudo bem?_ ” Grantaire calls as he’s approaching.

Bahorel looks up, grinning when he sees who is speaking to him. He shrugs, “ _Tudo_.  _E você_?”

Grantaire returns the shrug. “I’m fine.”

This earns him an appraising look. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

It’s late enough in the morning, practically noon, that other workers are starting to fill in the cafés and kilo restaurants for their lunch breaks.

Bahorel weaves his way along the crowded sidewalk, tall, wirey frame leaving an open path for Grantaire to follow in as he leads the way past some of the busier streets towards their usual kilo place. It’s smaller, a little hidden away, which means at this time, only one table outside is occupied by some older men smoking and sipping their  _cafezinho_  quietly.

The server at the door handing them their tickets is familiar with them by now, and he and Bahorel exchange greetings while Grantaire slips past. Another morning, he might have joined in. Today, however, with his migraine showing no signs of disappearing, and the nauseous hunger twisting in his gut, he doesn’t feel much like pleasantries.

Bahorel catches up somewhere ahead of the salads and fruit, his plate already half filled. He nods at Grantaire’s empty plate, and Grantaire can only shrug. Even the thought of eating fresh fruit has his stomach put off.

He ends up with a little less than half a kilo of rice and  _feijoada,_ a comfortingly familiar plate of sorts he thinks he can keep down. Bahorel, on the other hand, has well over a kilo worth of food piled on his plate.

“You know,” Bahorel says after a few minutes of quiet eating. “If you need to talk about anything…” He pauses, letting the silence go, implying the end of the sentence.

Grantaire makes a noncommittal noise. He’s picking bits of pork sausage out of his  _feijoada,_ and he’s aware of Bahorel’s raised eyebrows and unspoken questions, but he doesn’t answer them because he doesn’t have any answers.

When Grantaire doesn’t give him any more than that, Bahorel changes the subject to his morning shift. Something to do with incompetence and his manager. He isn’t excepting Grantaire to listen, for which Grantaire is grateful.

The only person Grantaire cared enough to tell about wanting to get sober was Bahorel. Partly because they spent a significant part of their time together surrounded by alcohol, whether they were consuming it or not (in Grantaire’s case, usually the former). But also… because Bahorel was the only person in Grantaire’s life whom he trusted enough to know when he was struggling, to be vulnerable about him, which was most of the time.

Bahorel immediately stepped up, helping him find resources, groups, a sponsor. He has an uncle who got sober, he explained at the time, and he kind of knew the drill.

He knew the drill well enough that when Grantaire “fell off the wagon,” whatever that phrase means, for the third, fourth, fifth time, he wasn’t surprised, he wasn’t mad, or upset, or anything else Grantaire was feeling towards himself in those moments.

It’s been a while since he’s had a really  _bad_  day, but this past week is pushing it. He feels like something is crawling, buzzing, just beneath his skin, ready to burst out. His skull could cave in at any moment, and he would thank G-d or who ever did the crushing.

At some point, Bahorel gets up to use the rest room, so when Grantaire looks up and sees a young woman with a sweet face and a scarf loose around her neck sitting across from him, he almost chokes on his food. Her face is turned toward the sun, eyes closed, and doesn’t seem to mind that she’s sitting at a stranger’s table.

“Uh— excuse me?” 

She starts, dark eyes flashing open. “How dare you!” she cries, fingers scrabbling at the scarf around her neck until it is firmly covering the rest of her hair and, oh— Grantaire looks away with a belated sense of respect.

He’s examining a nearby pot of flowers when he realizes he’s no longer sitting along a moderately busy street, but in the middle of a garden. There’s an ornate tea pot in front of him, and his mouth tastes not like beans and peppers, but rather of ginger and mint.

“You haven’t answered my question!” the young woman exclaims, but Grantaire is too busy trying to breathe to answer her. “How dare you! How did you get in here, how long have you—“ She stops, her breath catching.

They’re in a sort of walled garden. They’re outside a São Paulo restaurant. He’s drinking espresso, he’s drinking mint tea. His hands are soft and dark, nails rounded and pink; his hands are rough and big, scars rope along his knuckles. The sun is low in the sky, the afternoon’s heat rapidly dissipating; the sun is rising, not yet at its peak—

“What is happening to me,” he whispers, but it’s not his mouth that forms the words, or maybe it is, but the words are not Portuguese, the words are harder somehow, hit the back of his throat in a way he’s not used to. “What is this, what’s happening?”

“Again?” the softer voice asks, and there is fear there, but also some sort of acceptance, or resignation. 

“What?”

She is looking around herself, looking around the little terrace, before turning and focusing her attention on him. Her eyes narrow on his face, scrutinizing it in a way he’d rather she didn’t. “You’re not the same one.”

“The same what?”

“Figment,” she says.

“Figment?” he asks, helpless, because all it seems he can do is ask questions. He’s experienced hallucinations before, but none like this. None that have taken him away from reality so completely. None that have left him so self aware of the fact that he’s hallucinating.

He thinks, if he can stay as still as possible, as long as possible, Bahorel will return and help. That is, if Grantaire’s mind will let him out of the garden at all.

She nods, swallowing a little. “I— earlier today, I was sitting in my office, when suddenly I was in Japan, I was on a subway car. There was a man, with a cane, he could see me. No one else could.” She looks around herself again. “And now I’m, where is this?”

“São Paulo,” he says before he can stop himself. Who is he to deny his hallucinations. “Brazil.”

“Brazil,” she mouthed.

The question isn’t even on his lips before she is supplying the answer, “Egypt. Cairo, specifically.” They both seem surprised at her ready reply.

He wants to laugh, because it’s so absurd. How could he dream up a place he’s never been? Then again, he has no way of knowing if this private garden isn’t something he’s seen before, or in a movie somewhere. All he has to do is convince himself that this is Cairo.

“It is,” the woman says, as though she can read his mind. She sounds certain, but then, hallucinations would. He doesn’t remember the effects of sobriety hitting him this hard last time. He tries not to laugh, but the panic bubbling in his chest must manifest somehow.

He’s aware he looks manic, and despite being in this Egyptian garden, knows the older gentlemen sitting a few tables away still sipping their espressos are looking at him.

“Hasn’t — has this happened to you today?” she asks.

He stops laughing long enough to say, “No, why would it have?”

Her mouth twists a little at that, and she looks down at her cup of tea. “I don’t know. Something about it feels,” she takes a breath, “ _right_  is the wrong word. It feels….  _natural_.” She peeks up at him from lowered lashes, shy. “Like I’m supposed to meet you. Like I was supposed to meet the man on the train.”

Grantaire wishes his hallucinations wouldn’t try to relate to him like this.

“You mean you haven’t had this happen to you?” she asks again, and now she sounds a little desperate. He’d feel bad. If she weren’t a hallucination.

He thinks back to the golden haired man this morning, so early, crying out to him, the truck that never hit him. He thinks back to the woman, short hair lank, emaciated, standing in the middle of the road, watching him days ago.

He shakes his head. “No. You’re the first sign of my descent into madness.”

“I don’t think it’s madness!” she says, and it’s a passionate appeal.

“You would say that.”

“But it feels so real,” the woman murmurs as she leans back, face turned to the sun. She’s facing the wrong way in the garden, but on the terrace, the sun warms her brown skin. He can feel it, despite the sun being at his back.

Grantaire wants to congratulate himself on his ability to keep calm, but he’s certain he’s just putting off the inevitable. The panic attack this morning was a sign. He should have stayed in bed this morning.

“I think— I think I can feel your heartbeat, it’s,” the woman puts her hand to her breast, huffs out a pained breath. “You’re frightened.”

“Of course I am,” he snaps, loud, and doesn’t care if he looks like he’s talking to himself, because he  _is_. She can feel his heartbeat because she  _is_ him, she is an extension of him. She’s a —

“I’m  _not_.”

“And I should believe you, why?”

She opened her mouth, frowned, and closed it again.

He makes a gesture that says, ‘See. I told you.’ His chest still feels tight, like it might collapse in on itself at any moment, but seeing her at a loss for words settles some of the panic, if only for a moment. Then she speaks.

“My name is Cosette,” she tries after a long moment of silence.

Where is Bahorel? The migraine that was drilling through his skull the last week has lessened slightly, but the task of seeing double, of being both the woman in the garden and himself now brings the pounding tension back again.

“I don’t care,” he says, wire taut, leaning forward in his chair. The girl jerks back, her eyes wide. “I want this to stop. I want you to stop, I want you to go away—“

“Grantaire?”

Bahorel’s voice snaps his attention away from the woman. The tension holding Grantaire upright collapses out of him, and he falls heavily back in his chair.

Bahorel takes the seat the woman was occupying not a moment before. “You okay, bro?” His voice is careful and tight.

“Yes,” Grantaire says, short. He picks uphis fork and pokes at the remains of his lunch, but he’s never been less hungry.

“Yeah?"

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Grantaire thinks he’s going to leave it at that — Bahorel is good at reading people, he knows when he should push, when he should let things be. But this time, he doesn’t. “Maybe you shouldn’t compete tonight.”

Grantaire stares at his fork, doesn’t look up. “I’m fine.”

“You’re…” he doesn’t finish for a moment. “You’re too distracted, too wired. It’s gonna get you killed.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not, and until you can admit that, you’re not fighting.” Bahorel’s tone bade no argument.

 

**17:27, 5 June, Cairo, Egypt**

Cosette stares at the now empty chair. Her heart is rabbiting against her breastbone, and she forces herself to take a sip of her tea with shaking fingers, the warm ginger and sharp mint grounding her to reality.

She isn’t sure how she’s supposed to react to the appearance of the man—  _Grantaire_ , she’d heard someone say, before she found herself fully present in her garden again. She’s frustrated, and more frightened than she’s willing to admit.

Fear is wise, she decides. Grantaire was frightened, she could tell; he’d made no effort to hide it.

After all, she has now had two…  _figments_  today.  _One_  she could pass off as a daydream, maybe.  _One_  she could pretend meant nothing.

Two, though, and this time so much longer, this time so much more present, is the start of a pattern. Two is getting dangerously close to three, which  _is_ a pattern, and is definitely something to worry about.

Are they figments of her imagination? She wants to shut that train of thought down before she spirals into a panicked state — the after-tremors of Grantaire’s anxiety have not worn off, phantom agitation still stirring in her chest — and it’s difficult to pretend things are normal when they very much are  _not_.

But she can not shake herself of the certainty that what is happening isn’t  _wrong_. Something deep in the pit of her stomach, something settled comfortably in bones is telling her that this is right.

She’d felt no fear when she sat with Joly on the train. Only a sense of belonging. With Grantaire she thinks she might have felt that same unworried calm, but his panic frightened her. She hadn’t been able to separate her feelings from his, and he clearly didn’t share her opinion that what was happening was normal.

 _Because it isn’t_ , the rational part of her insists, loudly. She can’t disagree with it, because it’s not wrong. It’s just —

“Cosette?” Ultime Fauchelevent says, and Cosette jumps as her father approaches. “Did I hear you talking to someone?”

“N— yes, papa, just someone from work,” she lies, gesturing vaguely at her phone.

He frowns, and for a moment she’s afraid he’s going to question her, but instead he just takes his seat across from her, pouring himself another cup of tea. “A few of the ladies asked about you at Jumu'ah today,” he says instead.

She laughs and shakes her head. “They just want to set me up with one of their sons,” she says. And then, looking at Ultime slyly, “Or set  _you_  up with someone.”

Her father, unflappable, just grins into his cup.

They sit in silence together, enjoying the early evening despite the stagnant heat still trapped in the air.

For a moment, half a heartbeat really, Cosette considers telling her father what had really happened. And then she shakes her head at the absurdity of the idea.

He would worry. Her father worries so much about her; worries whether she gets out enough, whether she hangs out with people her own age enough, whether she's happy at her job, whether she's safe on her commute to work. No, if she told him she were hearing sounds from lives not her own, that she were speaking to people worlds away, he'd panic.

Cosette resolves to prove next time that these encounters are not figments of her imagination. Somehow, she must get proof the next time it happens. Assuming it happens again.

Part of her wants never to see another person like that again —one who transports her to other countries and bodies and lives.

Another, maybe bigger part of her wanted desperately for it all to be real.

* * *

 

It’s early yet, only six, but Ultime has started chopping onions, lentils simmering on the stove. He’s listening to the radio and smiles when she comes over to set the tea tray on counter. While he stirs the onions into the pot, she takes his place at the cutting board and begins slicing eggplant.

The radio host is reading the day’s news, her calm voice almost a drone. The words, “… are  _not_  calling this a terror attack,” jolt her into awareness, and she stops slicing for a moment, listening. “… former inspector in the Parisian police, who infamously aided escaped convict Jean V—“

The broadcast is abruptly shut off with a slam. Cosette jumps, and nearly cuts her finger on the knife.

Her father’s hand lies heavily atop of the radio, his dark face ashen as he stares blankly at the silent speakers. Cosette waits for him to move, explain, but he is frozen save his breathing, which has turned shallow and quick.

When the silence stretches on too long, Cosette asks quietly, “Papa?”

The sound of her voice seems to jolt him into a dazed awareness, and he turns to look at her. The look in his eyes is unlike anything she has ever seen before, and she has to stop herself from taking a step back.

For a moment, it’s almost as though her father looks right through her, as though he is seeing someone else entirely.

“Papa?” she tries again, trying and failing to keep the tremor from her voice. “Are you all right?”

This second time, he shakes himself, blinking hard. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she isn’t sure if he’s apologizing to her or someone — who? — else. His eyes have a faraway look to them, and it’s another moment before he says, “I’m sorry, Cosette, I don’t know what came over me.” His voice is barely a murmur.

“That’s okay,” she says slowly, though it isn’t, though she wants to ask him what just happened. She has never seen him like this. “Are you all right?” she asks again, though she knows the answer.

“I’ll be right back, I have to make a call,” he says. And with that, he hurries out of the kitchen, down the hall to his study.

She watches him leave, listens for the heavy thud of the closing door, and the muffled words that follow.

She doesn’t turn the radio back on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at [girlionceknew](http://girlionceknew.tumblr.com) and [g-taire](http://g-taire.tumblr.com).
> 
> edit: I realized i never explained: Ultime is the name Jean Valjean uses while they live in Paris. Cosette wouldn't have known him as Jean Valjean, though i don't remember if it's properly addressed in the Brick. That's why Marius sings, "You're Jean Valjean..." in 'Valjean's Confession' in the musical-- he hadn't been introduced to him as JVJ, but likely Ultime Fauchelevent, though they also don't touch on that.
> 
> Anyway.


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